This is a shitty publicity stunt. Like Magna Carta its well produced technically (the film) but has no substance, no effort, no creativity. You can put a thing in a museum setting but it doesn't make it art. This performance and video doesn't invoke anyone's thoughts, imaginations, emotions. it just makes you say oh there is Jay-Z standing on a museum platform rapping and look THERE'S CELEBRITIES!.

It's shameless self aggrandizement. It's thinking you're so great that you stop caring. It proves that Kanye has surpassed the Beatles.

Much respect for Marina Abramovic's work and the some of the other artists, I would totally go see Jay-Z if I was invited.

Agreed, should have said "makes Kanye look like the Beatles." The point is that Kanye makes for a good comparison with Jay-Z in popularity, career stage, cockiness, etc yet Kanye pushes his music in new directions and still maintains that energy and drive. Only artist to compare to Kanye is the Beatles in that they each released a multitude hook-filled albums that continuously broke new ground and rapidly progressed through new genres.

Jay-Z hires great producers but doesn't put anything into his music. He think's he can rap about anything, throw in some stupid wordplay and it'll get acclaim. I love how in Picasso Baby Jay-Z name drops a bunch of well known painters and it's sounds silly yet when Kanye name drops fashion designers in Christian Dior Denim Flow it sounds fucking awesome.

As a Jay-z fan not only is this lame and desperate it is entirely a ripoff of a performance art piece by Marina Abramovic in which she just sat across from random people from the crowd who attended. People cried and it was a big deal James Franco was there. So now its fashionable for celebrities to show their knowlege of Abramovic to prove their classy n shit. Jay-z's not even the first to do it A$ap or someone else reference her in some shit. Same exact setup same exact idea and it shows her there in the video. Painfully awkward really.

Jay Z said it was art not me, and that is how he performed the song, ( As a performance art piece). I just posted this because i know that most of you skiers on here are big music fans and thought you might enjoy this. I mean it would pretty cool to have Jay Z perform 6 feet in front me.

Yeezus and 808's flops? I can understand why you think 808's could have been a flop but only relativly to his other work. That album was a creative expression, his version of Kid A. He could have put out another album exactly like graduation and made a lot more money but he chose to go the anti-pop route. As for Yeezus, there really isn't a solid argument for it being a flop. It's one of the most talked about, most critically acclaimed albums in the past few years.

First off: He said himself that 808's was a dance album, so...no.
Yeezus: Even Jay-Z couldn't stand up for it on The Breakfast Club. While it has gotten good review from music critics, the public and rap community, not so much. It wasn't a good album, be real about it, it had Chief Keef autotuned on a hook for Gods Sake. 75% of the people talking about it aren't doing so in a positive manner.

haha 808's is dance influenced music, but that doesn't mean it's themes aren't some of the darkest kanye has ever delved into. 808's was an anti-pop album, plain and simple. Yeezus is the best rap album released this year (you could also argue run the jewels but I still believe it to be lesser than Yeezus). So now what the public thinks of an album is what determines it's critical merit? That's like saying because the last Taylor Swift album sold a shit-ton of copies that means it's a good album. If we judge albums solely by what the generally uneducated (in regards to music criticism) public thinks than some of the best albums of all time would have gone completely unrecognized. 75% of the public doesn't know what the hell they are talking about in regards to music. 75% of the public listens to pop bullshit without taking time to search for more meaningful, artistic music. If a Chief Keef hook is enough to turn you off from a whole album, then you clearly don't have a very open mind. Yeezus has been critically acclaimed pretty much universally so I don't really know about many rap critics who have spoken negatively of it.

Straight from the 808's wiki: He later stated that he wishes to present the music as a new genre called "pop art," clarifying that he was well aware of the visual art movement of the same name and wished to present a musical equivalent.[8] "Either call it 'pop' or 'pop art,' either one I'm good with," he later stated

So no...

And I was talking about the fact that the public reception of it has been very mixed to negative. I haven't met one person who likes it, and I hang out with rap fans and Kanye fans (I'm a huge Kanye fan myself). And on the flip side, if critical acclaim is all it takes for an album to be regarded as good then we might as well stop thinking for ourselves and developing our own tastes. And not just the Chief Keef hook, also the over-simplified beats, the blatant biting of Death Grips style. Kanye is trying to be too original, and forward thinking, which you could argue he is being. But guess what, originality=/= good. Good=good. And critics are so focused on trying to come off as "progressive" that they'll give good reviews to any experimental original artsy bullshit that comes their way.

Like I said, 808's is definitely a pop sounding album. There's no question about that. Lyrically, I think you would find it hard to compare that album to any modern "pop" music. Sonically, it's pop. Thematically, it's considerably different from anything happening in rap and popular music at the time of it's release. Like I said, Kanye could have put out another album that was very similar to Graduation or Late Registration and it would have been widely successful both commercially and critically. So I guess it does depend on your definition of pop, but anything that so obviously goes against the current trends of the time is definitely not what I would consider traditional pop music.

As for Yeezus, the whole point of that album was to defy (similarly to 808s) what the public expected and wanted from Kanye. As the sample goes from "On Sight": "He'll give us what we need, it may not be what we want." Just because an album isn't what the general public wanted, does't make it any less great. Critical acclaim is more important than popular opinion. Not to say that we should only listen to what critics say is good, but if you have to choose between following the advice of the public or the critics, it seems clear to me that critics are a more valuable, informed resource than what the charts tell us. Developing your own taste of music is essential, but doing so doesn't require that you tune out what others say about the album completely. You seem to be judging that people "don't like Yeezus" off of the opinions of your friends. That's fine, but, on the flip-side, my friends all really like the album so that's not exactly a fair measure of public opinion. Those "over-simplified beats" you were talking about are a huge step forward for Kanye. Coming off of the blatant maximalism of MBDTF, the minimalism of Yeezus is a nice progression for Kanye. Some artists, such as bands like Beach House, don't need to change their sound significantly every album. They can thrive off of simply honing their specific sound. Kanye can't really do that. Can you imagine how boring his career would be if every album sounded like College Dropout or Graduation? Kanye needed to change and he did.

As for his "biting Death Grips," if you had actually listened to Death Grips three albums you would understand that they really have hardly any similarities besides making dark-toned electronic-based music.

Fuck you guys I'm going home.

Aug 11 2013 6:50PM

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